


Halloween Drabbles

by kelly_chambliss



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Community: hp_halloween, Community: snape100, F/F, F/M, Gen, Halloween, Humor, Light BDSM, Post - Deathly Hallows, Psychological Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-10
Updated: 2013-11-10
Packaged: 2018-01-01 02:19:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,191
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1039203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kelly_chambliss/pseuds/kelly_chambliss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five Halloween-centered drabbles ranging from PG to (nearly) NC-17.   Gen, het, and femmeslash.  Genres include horror, angst, romance, and humor.  Pairings and characters include Minerva/Septima, Minerva/Hooch, Minerva/Severus, and Bellatrix gen.  Four drabbles were written for the annual HP_Halloween fest on LiveJournal; "Aaaaahhhhh" was written for Snape_100, a Snape drabble community.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Halloween Drabbles

~*~*~*~

From 2010:

 **Title:** With You Always  
 **Character:** Minerva McGonagall  
 **Rating:** G  
 **Summary:** Minerva attends a Halloween Feast.  
 **Notes:** Nimrod_9 wanted Halloween traditions, pumpkins, graveyards, loneliness. Many thanks to my excellent beta, Tetley the Second. 

_Oidhche Shamhna_ = Scottish Gaelic for the Celtic Samhain/New Year's festival.

~*~*~*~

Tonight is _Oidhche Shamhna_ , the sixth since the war's end. Minerva waits until the students, satisfied and sleepy after their Halloween feast, are safely abed; then she leaves the castle for her own celebration. Or vigil--she's not sure what to call it. She knows what _he'd_ call it, though: foolish, sentimental, proof that she's in her dotage at last.

The air is bitter as she crosses the grounds, her way lit by two grinning jack-o'-lanterns from the Feast. They bob alongside her, part beacon, part joke she knows he'll understand. He hates jack-o'-lanterns. "The sort of silliness that will end up laughing on my grave," he'd snarled every year.

She passes Albus's gleaming tomb and reaches the fence that encloses this other resting place, this mound with its small, flat headstone. Casting a warming charm, she sits and unpacks her basket, filling two plates with food and pouring two goblets of wine as she remembers the words her grandmother spoke at every _Shamhna_ : "Set a place for yourself and a place for the dead who are with you always."

Her little feast floats before her. Taking one goblet, Minerva touches it lightly to the other. "Slàinte, Severus," she says.

~*~*~*~

**Title:** Aaaaahhhhh  
 **Challenge:** #357 -- Snape's Halloween  
 **Pairing:** Minerva McGonagall/Severus Snape  
 **Rating:** NC-17. Ish.  
 **Warnings:** Dialogue-only  
 **Summary:** Ever wonder what the teachers did to celebrate Halloween after they settled the business of the troll in the dungeon?  
 **Notes:** Written with much authorial snickering, lots of porn clichés, and no excuse. Many thanks to my excellent beta-reader, Tetley the Second.

~*~*~*~

"Must we make love with that grotesque pumpkin face leering at us, Severus?"

"We're not making love, Minerva; we're fucking. Call it 'making love' on the nights _you_ win the bet."

"I still… oooh! yes, right there… I still contend that I _did_ win. It was my Gryffindors who… aaahhh… stopped the troll."

"And it's your same reckless idiot Gryffindors--argh! Not so hard!--who disobeyed orders to go to their common room and instead nearly got themselves killed. So I… ahhhhh, yessss… win. Don't I?"

"No, I think… why are you stopping?"

" _Don't I?_

"All right! Yes! You win."

~*~*~*~

"You win, Severus. But I still hate… mmmmmmm… that hideous… "

"Let's put that mouth to better use. Ahhhhhhh… Stop complaining… unnggghhh... You're the one who told Albus jack-o'-lanterns make… oh, yes, yeeeesssssss… an 'atmospheric contribution.'."

"----I didn't say I _liked_ the atmosphere, ye daft… mmmppffffgg…"

"And _I_ didn't say you could stop sucking… Mmmmm, that's it… aaaaaaaah…yes! Ready for your turn, Minerva?"

"Mmmpppffgg!!!!"

"Oh, right, you need your mouth. There. Ready?"

"Just take me! Now… aahhhhkkk! Oooh…"

"Good, aren't I?"

"Oh, GOD…"

"No. Just Severus."

~*~*~*~

From 2011:

 **Title:** Bittersweet  
 **Pairing:** Minerva McGonagall/Rolanda Hooch  
 **Rating:** PG  
 **Summary:** To Minerva McGonagall, the first Hallowe'en after the war is bittersweet.  
 **Notes:** Thanks to my excellent beta-readers, Tetley the Second and The Real Snape.

~*~*~*~

Headmistress McGonagall walks slowly through the silent Great Hall, checking to see that the floating jack-o-lanterns are in place and that a Hallowe'en party favour is set at each plate. She's never liked the Hallowe'en Feast--too American by half--but she's not about to cancel it now, not when Albus had loved it so and not when they need every celebration they can manage, in this difficult first year after the war.

Whatever her personal sorrows, she'll do her best to cheer the students. She'll open the party with a brief speech honouring those they have lost--dear Albus and brave Severus and young Colin and all the rest--and then she'll sit smiling at the head table, closing her ears to the din. For once, the children may have all the noise and sugar they want.

And she will not feel guilty when, after the Feast ends, she leaves the school in Filius's capable hands and takes herself to a private celebration of her own. She will gather her cloak and her jug of warm, spiced wine; then by wandlight she will make her way to the snug cottage near the Quidditch pitch and to her Rolanda's arms.

~*~*~*~

From 2012:

 **Title:** Determination  
 **Pairing:** Minerva McGonagall/Septima Vector  
 **Rating:** R-ish (for bdsm hints)  
 **Summary:** On Samhain night, it's not just the universe that is disordered.  
 **Notes:** Thanks to my excellent beta-reader, The Real Snape

~*~*~*~

On Samhain night, the Veil of the universe parts, and the truths we think we know dismantle themselves. On Samhain, the dead can become the living, and the living can be reborn. Each change changes another. Samhain is the Uncertainty Principle embodied, the night the universe determinedly proves its indeterminacy.

Septima Vector lives for it.

She lives for universal Samhain because it brings the world to her doorstep; her arithmancer's heart is tied to these ancient rituals that shape and break reality.

And she lives for her particular Samhain because it brings her beloved to her arms; her woman's heart is tied as firmly to the Headmistress as the Headmistress will soon let herself be tied to Septima's bedposts.

They come together rarely, for Headmistress McGonagall is as predictable as Isaac Newton wrongly believed the world to be, and so she worries about the irregularities: about sleeping with someone on her staff, about the forty years that lie between her and her Arithmancy Mistress.

But on Samhain, the immutable laws shift, the Veil folds in upon itself, and the Headmistress becomes Minerva, a woman warm and wanting, her hair disordered, her rules broken, her eternity bound by Septima's determined hands.

~*~*~*~

From 2013

 **Title:** To and Fro  
 **Character:** Bellatrix Lestrange  
 **Rating:** PG-13  
 **Summary:** Bellatrix has a special reason for looking forward to Samhain.  
 **Notes:** Thanks to my excellent beta-reader, Magnetic Pole.

~*~*~*~

The Shades guarding the Veil flutter uneasily as Bellatrix approaches.

Yet they do not stop her as she glides past them into the temporal realm. Indeed, they _cannot_ stop her. Not tonight.

For tonight is Samhain, the one time that the Veil thins, and any spirit who wishes can pass through to spend a brief, breathing hour among the living.

But only Bellatrix has the power to bring one of the living back with her.

Back to death.

Her Lord taught her the secret, for she is the only one He really trusted. She is His. Always and forever.

It is for His sake that she breaches the Veil, seeks out His enemies. Why should they live when He is dead?

She likes to choose someone who is loved and needed. Someone whose passing causes pain.

As the Veil closes behind her, Bellatrix draws breath.

And lives.

She has not decided, yet, who will return with her.

Perhaps hateful old McGonagall. Perhaps her ungrateful coward of a nephew. Or perhaps she will seize one of the Potter spawn, leaving its father alive to mourn.

She relishes the possibilities.

Taking another breath, Bellatrix dons her mask and joins the Samhain revels.


End file.
